Web Development Certification — formal training, not just tutorials.
Cybersecurity Studies — understanding how sites get attacked
Ottawa-based — invested in this city and its business community
No Fix, No Fee — the guarantee I'd want if I were in your position
The problem, as I kept seeing it, was this: small business owners in Ottawa were being badly underserved when their websites broke. They’d call a big agency and end up on hold. They’d post in a Facebook group and get three contradictory answers. Furthermore, they’d hire someone overseas and spend a week exchanging emails with someone who didn’t understand the problem — or the stakes — the way a local person would.
“The barrier wasn’t technical. It was trust. People needed someone local, qualified, and honest — not just someone who could do the job, but someone who would.”
I completed my web development certification with a genuine interest in how things work under the surface — not just how to make a site look good, but how the moving parts interact, where the weak points are, and what to do when something breaks at the worst possible time. Around the same time, I started studying cybersecurity, which opened up a whole other dimension of how WordPress sites fail. Most breaches aren’t random. They follow patterns, exploit specific vulnerabilities, and leave traces that tell a clear story if you know how to read them.
Combining those two things — deep web development knowledge and a genuine security mindset — turned out to be genuinely rare in the local freelance market. Most people do one or the other. I do both, and that combination gives my clients something they won’t easily find elsewhere.
Because that's genuinely what I am. Not a faceless agency, not a corporate brand. One person, one focus, and a name that says exactly what I do without pretending to be something bigger than I am. In a world full of vague agency names, I figured straightforward was worth something.
I live here. I shop at the same restaurants, support the same local businesses, and care about the same neighbourhoods that my clients do. When a Glebe restaurant's site goes down, I feel that urgency personally — not professionally. That makes a real difference in how fast I move and how hard I work.
This is the part most WordPress repair people don't have. Studying cybersecurity taught me to think like an attacker — to ask not just "what broke" but "how did it get broken" and "what else might be compromised." That thinking makes my security cleanups thorough in a way that surface-level fixes simply aren't.
These aren’t company values written by a marketing team. They’re the actual principles that guide how I work — and how I’d want someone to work on my own business.
If I look at your site and the problem is beyond what I can solve well, I'll tell you that before I spend your time or money. If the issue is simpler than it looks and will take thirty minutes rather than three hours, you'll hear that too. I'd rather build a reputation on straight talk than on maximizing invoice size. Ottawa is a city where word travels — and the only word worth having is that I told the truth.
Every time I fix something, I try to leave the site in a state where that same thing is less likely to break again. That means documenting what failed, explaining why, and making reasonable hardening changes as I go — even when they weren't part of the original scope. You hired me to solve a problem. I consider it part of the job to help prevent the next one too.
A site going down at 4:30 on a Friday doesn't care about standard office hours, and neither do I. I keep my schedule structured so that when a real emergency comes in, I can actually respond to it — not three days later. I don't promise 24/7 availability, because that would be misleading. What I do promise is that I treat urgency as urgency, not as something to be queued.
I handle credentials carefully, I never store access information after a job is done, and I take backups before I touch anything. Your site belongs to you — I'm a trusted guest in it, and I behave accordingly. My cybersecurity background means I understand what's at stake when someone else has temporary access to your systems. I hold myself to the standard I'd want others to hold themselves to with mine.
When I finish a job, I send a plain-English summary of what happened, what I did, and what you should know going forward. Not a wall of technical logs, and not a vague "it's all good now" — something that actually leaves you more informed than when we started. You run your business with the information you have. I want the quality of that information about your website to be better after working with me, not just the site itself.
Credentials matter — but only when they translate into better outcomes for the person paying for the work. Here’s what mine actually mean in practice.
Fix rate on jobs accepted — I don’t take on work I can’t complete
Average emergency response time during business hours
My web development certification gave me structured, rigorous training in how the modern web actually works — HTML, CSS, JavaScript, server environments, and importantly, WordPress architecture. This isn't self-taught from YouTube tutorials. It's formal coursework that built a deep foundation, which is why I can diagnose problems at the code level rather than just clicking through menus hoping something changes.
WordPress powers nearly half the internet, which makes it one of the most targeted platforms for attackers. My cybersecurity studies taught me how those attacks work — the specific vulnerabilities they exploit, the techniques used to maintain access after a breach, and the hardening strategies that actually make a difference. When I clean a hacked site, I'm applying real security knowledge, not just running a plugin and hoping for the best.
Beyond certifications, I've worked in the guts of WordPress — wp-config files, database structures, hooks and filters, WP-CLI, staging environments, and the ecosystems of Elementor, WooCommerce, and Divi. I know where problems hide and I know how to fix them at the root rather than applying surface-level patches that come back around in three months.
Understanding Ottawa's business community means I understand the context my clients operate in — the seasonal peaks, the local competitive landscape, the importance of Google Maps rankings for Centretown restaurants and Barrhaven contractors alike. This isn't generic freelance work. It's locally informed support from someone who wants Ottawa's independent businesses to thrive.
Before a single dollar changes hands, I look at your site and tell you exactly what's wrong. You know the problem and the price before I start. No guesswork on your end, no surprise invoices on mine.
I take a complete backup of your WordPress site before making any changes — every single time, without exception. It has saved clients from catastrophic data loss more than once. This is non-negotiable for me.
When you call Webby Guy, you reach me — the person who will actually diagnose, fix, and follow up on your site. No call centre, no middleman, no account manager between you and your problem getting solved.
I explain what happened, what I did about it, and what you should watch for — in language that doesn't require a computer science degree. You deserve to understand what's happening with your own website.
If I take on your problem and cannot solve it, you pay nothing. This keeps me honest, keeps my standards high, and means you're never left holding an invoice for work that didn't work.
Once I've worked on your site, you have someone who knows it. If something comes up in three months, you're not starting over with a stranger. I'm reachable, I remember your setup, and I'm invested in it staying healthy.
The questions clients usually have but don’t always feel comfortable asking directly. I’d rather answer them here so you can make a confident decision.
That's a fair and important question, and I'd rather answer it honestly than pretend it's not a real consideration. For planned absences, I give monthly care plan clients advance notice and arrange coverage through a trusted peer network of developers. For unexpected emergencies, I'm transparent with clients about timelines and — in genuine crises — I have relationships with other qualified WordPress specialists I can call on. Being solo means you always talk to the expert. The trade-off is that I have to be thoughtful about capacity. I am.
I've been working with WordPress as part of my web development training and professional work for several years, combining formal certification study with real client projects here in Ottawa. My cybersecurity studies run alongside that and actively inform how I approach every site I work on. I'm not the person with twenty years of freelancing behind them — but I'm also not someone who just discovered WordPress last month. I'm trained, current, and building a reputation I care about protecting.
For straightforward WordPress repair work, yes — often significantly. A web agency has overhead: project managers, account executives, office space, billing systems, and profit margins that support all of that. I have none of that, which means my rates reflect the actual work. That said, I'd push back on framing this only as a price comparison. The more meaningful difference is that with an agency, your problem goes into a queue handled by whoever is available. With me, your problem goes to the person you spoke with, who is accountable for the outcome.
My primary focus is repair, security, maintenance, and optimization — the things that go wrong with existing WordPress sites. For significant redesigns or full site builds, I'm selective. If it's a focused WordPress build using Elementor or a similar builder, I'm comfortable taking it on. For large custom development projects with complex functionality, I'll be straight with you about whether that's inside or outside my scope. I'd rather refer you to the right person than overpromise.
It feels like calling a trusted contractor who has done this a hundred times before. You describe the problem in whatever terms feel natural — "it's just broken" is a completely valid starting point. I ask a few targeted questions. I look at your site and tell you what I'm seeing. I give you a straight assessment and a price. You decide whether to proceed. If you do, I fix it, I test it, and I send you a plain summary when it's done. At no point should you feel like you need to understand the technical details to be treated respectfully. You're hiring me so that you don't have to understand them.
That's exactly the right question, and I respect that you're asking it. Honestly, you shouldn't extend blind trust to anyone — including me. What I'd suggest instead: start with something small. Let me fix one specific problem and see how I communicate, how I work, and whether my results match what I said. Trust builds over time and through experience, not through a good pitch. I'm not going anywhere, and I'd rather earn your confidence over a series of interactions than ask for it all upfront.
